Article

4/3/2007

Expedite Development of USB Hardware or Software with USB Monitor

Whether you are developing or reverse-engineering a USB device, programming an application with USB communication, or simply analyzing data sent and received via USB interface, USB Monitor by HHD Software will expedite your project saving time and expense.

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) has become the most popular device communication interface in modern computers. All external devices that used serial or parallel interfaces in the past, such as printers, scanners, modems, even mice and keyboards, are now employing USB due to its vast superiority over the legacy interfaces. Many new classes of devices emerged in recent years because of widespread availability of the highly versatile, high-speed USB interface. USB provides multiple benefits to the end user, including hot-plugging and automatic device detection by the host PC, superior transfer speeds, and easy expandability with external USB hubs should the need for more USB ports arise.

Enhanced USB capabilities for end users mean much greater complexity for developers. All USB devices must respond to a certain set of commands with standardized responses in real time. Monitoring and capturing the data was easily achieved with simple hardware in the days of serial and parallel ports; with USB it is not an easy task anymore, as all transmissions are encoded. Testing and debugging USB devices requires additional tools that are able to capture and translate USB data into meaningful output.

USB Monitor by HHD Software (http://www.hhdsoftware.com) is capable of conveniently capturing and analyzing data transferred between a Windows PC and a USB device of any class.

If you ever created a software program more complex than the famous 'Hello, World!' you most certainly know the importance of debugging. Bugs are inevitable in any complex project, be it software or hardware. USB hardware is no exception.

Software developers are lucky enough to have a wide variety of source code debugging tools available on the market, no matter what programming language they use. Hardware developers often use specialized devices and expensive software in order to test and debug their products. One important thing that all of these tools lack is source code debugging. In most cases, a hardware developer is only able to see raw data streams that have to be saved and analyzed elsewhere.

USB Monitor makes USB debugging as simple as tracing the source code written in a high-level programming language. Thanks to its ability to analyze Human Interface Devices (HID), Mass Storage, and Still Image USB protocols, you no longer have to deal with binary data. Instead of a raw data stream, you will see a convenient presentation of the data sent and received by USB devices supporting these protocols.

One of the most important aspects of developing a new USB device or reverse-engineering an existing one is the ability to capture data that is transmitted between the computer and the USB device for later scrupulous analysis. USB Monitor will either monitor USB transmissions in real time, or store data into a log file for later playback and analysis. It can even export the logged data to many popular formats so that you can use your favorite third-party application to process it. There is little need to use third-party software for working with data, as with USB Monitor you can use all six of its powerful analyzers at the same time, including URB View, Packet View, Statistics View, HID View, Mass Storage View, and Still Image View.

Using USB Monitor helps you save time and efforts on debugging or reverse-engineering USB devices. Thanks to its flexible licensing policy, its different versions are powerful enough for the most demanding user, and remain affordable for corporate or individual use. Download your free evaluation copy at: http://www.hhdsoftware.com/usb-monitor